De 天美传媒 University is a global academic hub for the Sustainable Development Goals, which form a key cross-cutting theme of its The Empowerment University strategic plan.
Our 2024 report on all 17 SDGs will show what work the university has been doing through research and engagement in helping to meet those targets and raising awareness of the progress towards the 2030 aims.
Our reports start with the United Nations’ verdict on progress from their 2024 report on SDG 13 Climate Action.
UN PROGRESS REPORT ON SDG 13
Progress on this SDG is particularly stark with 65% of the targets set for 2030 showing minimal progress and a further 35% showing actual regression on the 2015 baseline.
The UN report on SDG 13 is stark in their 2024 report: “Climate records were shattered in 2023 as the climate crisis accelerated in real time. Rising temperatures have not abated and global greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb. Communities worldwide are suffering from extreme weather and increasingly frequent and more intense disasters, destroying lives and livelihoods daily. Meanwhile, fossil fuel subsidies hit a record high. The global community faces a critical juncture. All countries must urgently speed up economy-wide, low-carbon transformations to avoid escalating economic and social costs.
The road map to halting warming at 1.5°C and avoiding the worst of climate chaos is clear but cannot afford any delays or half measures. Drastic reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions must take place by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050.”
DMU NEWS ON SDG 13 in 2024
Staff and students unite during COP 29 to celebrate sustainability successes
Exceptional contributions to sustainability by both staff and students at De 天美传媒 University were celebrated at the third annual climate awards last week.
More than 100 individuals from across the university were nominated for awards stretching from healthcare, arts and culture, to enterprise, and engineering. The nominations highlighted the wide range of innovative research, teaching, and campus initiatives at DMU driving sustainability forward.
DMU students join forces for COP 29 to fight pollution of waterways
Students from De 天美传媒 University have helped fill 35 bags worth of rubbish from around a local river to help clean up the city’s waterways.
A group of volunteers from the university helped clear piles of waste from the banks of the River Soar, including shopping trolleys, a bike, a grandfather clock and car keys.
More than 20 students joined forces with Leicester City Council and the Canal and River Trust for the annual litter pick, timed to coincide with the COP29 climate talks in Baku, Azerbaijan.
Two weeks and more than 20 events to mark COP 29 summit
More than 500 staff and students at De 天美传媒 University took part in event during COP 29 at Baku helping to driving meaningful local action in line with global climate discussions.鈥�
More than 20 events were held including "29 Ideas for COP29" initiative, which invited the university community to submit proposals for sustainable campus improvements, with over 100 people participating in this collaborative effort to make local change happen.
DMU also launched its SDG Fellows programme, aiming to build a network of 100 academics and staff dedicated to advancing the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals across the university.
DMU researchers attend COP 29 to take their research into tackling plastic waste to African governments
Two researchers from De 天美传媒 University Leicester (DMU) have travelled to the world’s most important climate and sustainability event – COP29 – to take their work on tackling plastic waste to African government representatives.
Silifat Abimbola Okoya, known as Abi, is a Researcher in Sustainable Development at DMU, specialising in the circular economy and quality education. She is joined by Muyiwa Oyinlola, DMU Professor of Innovation for Sustainable Development and a senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
They are at COP29 – which this year is being hosted in Baku, the capital city of Azerbaijan – as part of a consortium with the University of Warwick to reveal more about the Garbage In Value Out (GIVO) project. GIVO centres in Nigeria are set up as community hubs to pick up plastic waste from residents and process it into recyclable products.
Can old electric car parts bring green power to energy-deprived parts of Africa?
An international research project plans to turn a growing global stock of old electric vehicle parts into affordable renewable energy for sub-Saharan Africa, where 50% of the population still have no electricity.
The £3.5 million project brings together UK based researchers from De 天美传媒 University Leicester (DMU), the University of Warwick, and Chatham House.
They are working in collaboration with universities, governments, and industries from Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa and Namibia to address these pressing energy challenges.
The new project, Circular Microgrids: Circular Economy Pathways for Renewable Microgrids in Africa, led by Muyiwa Oyinlola, Professor of Innovation for Sustainable Development at De 天美传媒 University Leicester (DMU), focuses on repurposing electric vehicle components—such as lithium-ion batteries, power converters, and motors—for renewable energy microgrids.
DMU highly commended in International Green Gown Awards
A mission to decolonise and decarbonise De 天美传媒 University Leicester (DMU) has earned the institution a highly commended award at the prestigious International Green Gown Awards.
The Decolonising and Decarbonising DMU entry highlighted the work to challenge racism and build an anti-racist university that creates fairness for鈥痑ll staff and students and showed how this was incorporated into the work of DMU’s Sustainable Development Team.
The project was launched to鈥痙ismantle racist barriers and structures so that staff and students could succeed, by challenging racism, changing cultures鈥痑nd鈥痓ehaviours and improving representation, progression and talent.
New sustainable heating system slashes university carbon output
De 天美传媒 University has switched its first building to a greener heating system, cutting its annual carbon footprint by 30 tonnes.
Leicester Media School, which houses the university's Game Art and Animation courses, is the first building on campus to move from natural gas heating, to being heated using zero-carbon electricity and renewable energy sources.
The university was awarded over £176,718 to install the new carbon-cutting heat pump to power its media school from the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.
The fund is managed on the Department’s behalf by Salix - as part Phase 3b of the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, aimed at supporting the public sector switch to sustainable energy sources.
DMU unveils textiles innovation at UK's largest sustainability showcase
Researchers and academics from Textile Engineering and Materials Research Group (TEAM) of De 天美传媒 University were part of the Expo’s innovation zone, featuring collaborations which could pave the way for alternative materials and solutions that could reduce the environmental impact of textile production and support the textile industry transition to circularity.
At the Future Fabrics Expo, the successful research collaboration between DMU and Loughborough University led by Professor Jinsong Shen showcased innovations using laser technology to apply dyes directly to textile fabrics requiring far less energy, water and chemicals than conventional methods, and biotechnology using enzymes to dye textiles without using traditional premanufactured dyes as an alternative to conventional dyeing methods saving energy and reducing effluent waste.
DMU ranked second most eco-friendly university in the UK
De 天美传媒 University, Leicester (DMU), is celebrating a significant milestone after being ranked as the second most environmentally friendly university in the country.
Announced today in The Guardian, DMU was awarded a first-class degree for the 13th consecutive year in the annual People and Planet University League, in recognition of its environmental and ethical performance.
£3m research to assess global impact of climate change on human health
Researchers have begun work on a pioneering study to investigate how climate change is affecting healthcare system resilience around the world.
The £3m project, called RESHAPE – RESilience in HeAlth Post-Extreme weather events – brings together academics and communities from around the globe to explore the different ways in which people are responding to environmental challenges that affect hospitals and healthcare providers.
The team are working on the ground in Malawi, Vietnam, Tanzania, and Uganda, each of which faces an increase in extreme weather events associated with climate change and threaten the provision of critical healthcare to millions of people.
DMU RESEARCH INTO SDG 13
Perspectives on Indigenous well鈥�being and climate change adaptation (Sergio Jarillo and Carlos Crivelli)
Though it is often said that climate change is a risk to people's well鈥恇eing, the specific ways in which it affects people's well鈥恇eing is still poorly understood, especially as it relates to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities.
We find that, despite the growing interest on the topic, most of the articles do not include definitions of well鈥恇eing. We then propose an approach informed by emic values to better understand how climate change may affect well鈥恇eing in Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities. We conclude that, given the increasing recognition of well鈥恇eing as a fundamental marker of successful adaptation, well鈥恇eing should be central to climate change research and policymaking, but for this to be of benefit to Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities context鈥恠pecific understandings of well鈥恇eing are necessary.
Picturing climate: Steps Towards Embedding Artistic Practice into Climate Change Research (Mark Kasumovic)
Much of the science that predicts and models climate systems and climate change is not typically seen by publics and therefore remains mystified in popular culture, hidden behind specialist terminologies.
This lack of engagement with climate science could be improved by introducing new ways for climate scientists to engage with the public by employing the creativity found within the visual arts.
This paper proposes that a potential way to achieve deeper cultural communication of climate science is to establish ways of demystifying and ‘picturing’ the complexities of climate by directly embedding artistic practice into climate change research, employing an interdisciplinary approach to exploring, encouraging and enhancing collaboration between visual artists and climate science communities.
This can result in a greater connection between climate science and communities by bridging the gap between specialist knowledge and public understanding of critical issues via a visual language.
Emerging Perspectives on Diverse Nature-Oriented Sustainability Strategies (Abhishek Tiwary and Neil Brown)
Increasing levels of nature-oriented sustainability strategies (NOSSs) are being recognized as offering solutions to combat climate change at scale, both through transformative infrastructure and autonomous technology innovations. This paper presents a synopsis of the mainstream literature covering the emerging trends from the last two decades across two broad trajectories of NOSS initiatives—“nature-inspired” (NI)- and “nature-based solution” (NBS)-oriented approaches.
We find ambitious levels of sustainability-led developments are driving NOSS initiatives beyond 2010; in particular, the increased level of NI approaches in the field of chemical processing, material structure, and renewable energy. Likewise, there has been rapid growth in NBS approaches in the last decade from a systems perspective, reducing the level of grey infrastructure by offering sustainable alternatives to the ecologically destructive technologies.
However, we identify some crucial red herrings to the main-streaming of NOSSs as a ‘true sustainability solution’, such as the inherent challenges in their scaling-up, operation and management, and in ensuring ecologically and culturally adaptive interventions across different global contexts.
SDG 13 Climate Action